Books & Literature

Feature Article from Hemmings Motor News

"TV" Tommy Ivo
By Tom Cotter
Motorbooks
800-458-0454www.qbookshop.com
$28.00****
When we assign a rating to the books we review here, we try to do it within the context of the likely potential buyer. And in that regard, we can say flatly that any fan of drag racing worthy of that self-description will have to have this book.
None of us can say for sure who Tommy Ivo inspired, besides millions of drag fans, but it's fun to speculate. There are detectable levels of Reggie Jackson, Evel Knievel and Kenny Rogers all in this sorta-old man who still looks really young. It's easier to confirm that his longtime road buddy and car club-mate, Don Prudhomme, learned to be a showman from Ivo, who actually was one. Tom Cotter, who has a marked gift for enabling hot rod legends to tell their stories, has cleared the fences with this book.
First, while we assume it's an effort to mitigate production costs, the standard-size binding of this 240-page hardcover does nothing at all to diminish its inside content. It's absolutely wealthy with photography and good layout practices, with more than 240 images crammed inside. They're terrific. Just one shows Ivo's advanced (for its time) trailer lashed to the main deck of a freighter churning across the North Atlantic en route to a tour of England. Others show what's left of the Ivo cars remaining today--the author, after all, is an authority on barn finds. This should be the template for a modern-day drag history.
Airplane Racing
By Doug Berliner
800-253-2187www.mcfarlandpub.com
$35***
Beyond being spectacular and incredibly scary, you can track some longstanding parallels from the world of ultra-performance racing airplanes and the more ordinary orbit of the car.
Right from the start, the first documented air race in 1909 took place at Reims, longtime home of the French Grand Prix. James Gordon Bennett was an early proponent of airborne competition. So were the motorcycle champion Glenn Curtiss, Bugatti, Rolls-Royce and Packard. Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I ace who built quality cars and later ran the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, flew in this orbit, too.
This is a global history of air racing, the battleground for astronauts, winged cowboys and adventurers with chests full of medals. Airplane Racing's author, Don Berliner, is editor of Golden Pylons, the Society of Air Racing Historians newsletter. The book covers the sport's full international history in 260 pages. One image inside is this Caudron C.460, powered by a Renault V-12 with 450hp. Following two straight wins at the Coupe Deutsch in France, Michel Detroyat piloted it to a 1936 Thompson Trophy triumph in Los Angeles.
The U.S. military eyed the Caudron strongly as a possible fighter design, and the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk that came later bears more than a passing resemblance. There's high performance in here that any car crazy ought to appreciate.

This article originally appeared in the June, 2011 issue of Hemmings Motor News.